The re-election campaign of US President Barack Obama opened an assault on
Mitt Romney's background as a private equity executive with a video seeking
to undermine the Republican's percieved economic competence.

11:31PM BST 14 May 2012

Mitt Romney's record as an executive at Bain Capital, a firm that bought and restructured companies, was a hotly debated topic during the Republican primary battle as the presidential frontrunner sought to position himself as the candidate with the private sector business acumen necessary to rescue the US economy.

Romney's rivals mounted their attack after the media exposed the case of a Kansas steel mill that went bankrupt under the company's ownership.

The Obama campaign is now highlighting the story of the GS Technologies mill to argue that the brand of capitalism Romney practiced at Bain benefited wealthy investors at the expense of workers.

The Democratic incumbent's campaign released a six-minute video that focuses on the demise of the company, which Bain purchased in 1993 and less than a decade later closed with 750 people losing their jobs.

Bain profited on the deal, receiving $12 million on its $8 million initial investment and at least $4.5 million in consulting fees, according to a report by Reuters.

The Obama video was featured on a specially created website, RomneyEconomics.com.

"In a career of buying and selling companies, Romney's pattern was to reap quick profits for himself and his investors at the expense of workers and communities," the Obama campaign said in a statement releasing the video. "Sometimes it meant sending American jobs overseas. Other times, it meant cutting wages and benefits."

The Romney campaign responded by saying the attack ad was merely a way of distracting the electorate from President Obama's own economic failure.

"We welcome the Obama campaign's attempt to pivot back to jobs and a discussion of their failed record. Mitt Romney helped create more jobs in his private sector experience and more jobs as governor of Massachusetts than President Obama has for the entire nation," said Romney campaign spokeswoman Andrea Saul.

She said Obama has many questions to answer about why his administration used money from a $787 billion stimulus passed early in his tenure "to reward wealthy campaign donors with taxpayer money for bad ideas" like Solyndra, a solar panel company that went bankrupt despite receiving $535 million in loan guarantees from the stimulus.

"If the Obama administration was less concerned about pleasing their wealthy donors and more concerned about creating jobs, America would be much better off," she said.